0
Penis Envy and Freud
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penis_envyPenis envy (German: Penisneid) is a stage theorized by Sigmund Freud regarding female psychosexual development, in which female adolescents experience anxiety upon realization that they do not have a penis. Freud considered this realization a defining moment in a series of transitions toward a mature female sexuality and gender identity. In Freudian theory, the penis envy stage begins the transition from an attachment to the mother to competition with the mother for the attention, recognition and affection of the father.
[...]
In Freud's psychosexual development theory, the phallic stage (approximately between the ages of 3.5 and 6) is the first period of development in which the libidinal focus is primarily on the genital area. Prior to this stage, the libido (broadly defined by Freud as the primary motivating energy force within the mind) focuses on other physiological areas. For instance, in the oral stage, in the first 12 to 18 months of life, libidinal needs concentrate on the desire to eat, sleep, suck and bite. The theory suggests that the penis becomes the organ of principal interest to both sexes in the phallic stage. This becomes the catalyst for a series of pivotal events in psychosexual development. These events, known as the Oedipus complex for boys, and the Electra complex for girls, result in significantly different outcomes for each gender because of differences in anatomy.
Freud thought girls:
Soon after the libidinal shift to the penis, the child develops her first sexual impulses towards her mother.
The girl realizes that she is not physically equipped to have a heterosexual relationship with her mother, since she does not have a penis.
She desires a penis, and the power that it represents. This is described as penis envy. She sees the solution as obtaining her father's penis.
She develops a sexual desire for her father.
The girl blames her mother for her apparent castration (what she sees as punishment by the mother for being attracted to the father) assisting a shift in the focus of her sexual impulses from her mother to her father.
Sexual desire for her father leads to the desire to replace and eliminate her mother.
The girl identifies with her mother so that she might learn to mimic her, and thus replace her.
The child anticipates that both aforementioned desires will incur punishment (by the principle of lex talionis).
The girl employs the defence mechanism of displacement to shift the object of her sexual desires from her father to men in general.
[...]
Karl Abraham differentiated two types of adult women in whom penis envy remained intense as the wish-fulfilling and the vindictive types: The former were dominated by fantasies of having or becoming a penis—as with the singing/dancing/performing women who felt that in their acts they magically incorporated the [parental] phallus. The latter sought revenge on the male through humiliation or deprivation (whether by removing the man from the penis or the penis from the man).
Reply With Quote
Originally Posted by Anthony PV
Bookmarks